Daily Archives: January 10, 2013

I’ve never been a huge Apple fan. They make some good stuff but price points keep me away. I do have an ancient iPod and an iPhone, however. I have the iPod simply because my former employer – who, like Lord Voldemort, shall not be named – offered it as a gift for 20 years of thankless labour. I got the iPhone because it was less than $100.00 as an upgrade from my late and unlamented Blackberry. I probably should amend the bit about the iPhone because we became a two-iPhone family in the last days of 2012.

My wife had been using the same cell phone since 2003 and the technology was old even back then. We signed up for Nextel because of the push-to-talk feature. I could never get my wife to use push-to-talk in the nine or so years that we had the phones. (Heck, I can barely get her to turn the thing on!) In early Feb. of 2012, I gave up & moved over to the Sprint network. Well, the Nextel network is going bye-bye around the end of June so it was time to find her a new phone. Sprint was offering a $100 dollar upgrade for the iPhone 4S so we did as switcheroo and I got the newer iPhone & she took my old – but still perfectly good – iPhone 4. At this point, she still hasn’t gotten the hang of touch-screens and Siri is not speaking to me. (Was it something I said?)

The preceding has be a circumlocutory way of leading in to the three bits of Apple news I have for you today so let’s get down to business.

Apple is rumoured to be planning a cheaper iPhone. Since Cupertino has seemed to finally grasp the idea that ordinary folks don’t have the cash to splash out on their hardware, they are said to be considering a polycarbonate plastic rather than the standard aluminium case and possibly using parts from recycled iPhones. Since refurbished keyboards. headphones and mice are a so-so kind of experience, Dr. Data is not too keen on having to rely on recycled phone parts. Read the full story on ZDNet.

Apple + Internet = Mess or so says a former Apple Engineer who is a die-hard dyed-in-the-wool Apple fan. The ZDNet article by Charlie Osborne – no, she does not appear to be related to Ozzy even though she is British – goes on to list a plethora of Apple internet services that aren’t up to snuff. The aforementioned Apple engineer also indicates that Android is gaining a significant advantage over iOS. Read the full article on ZDNet.

Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you. The former CEO of Apple’s big Israel acquisition, Anobit, shares his experiences of Apple culture and how the company’s 1990s ‘near death experience’ still shapes it today. OK, I “borrowed” the article summary from ZDNet but nonetheless, the story is well worth your time. Read it on ZDNet.